76ers Bulls Summary

Best Player / Most Valuable Player: Andre Iguodala (Individual +22, Net +13). It's been a personal belief that a team with Andre Iguodala as its #2 guy could easily win a title. Outstanding defense, great passer to the point of still being under-rated, great going to the basket and in transition, and a decent resume as a part time closer (Game 1, 2009 1st round against Orlando before Game 6). The problem is, his supporters say that's selling him short, and his detractors say he's overpaid. Well, guess what? The NBA has a very finite supply of true alpha dogs (Lebron, Dirk, Kobe, Wade, Dwight, CP3, Durant), and none of them can win it alone. Plus, the #2 guy on the last few title teams (Tyson Chandler, Pau Gasol, Kevin Garnett) were miscast as #1's and had pretty hefty contracts.

Worst Player: Luol Deng (Individual -9). Played a ton of minutes through some seriously painful injuries, so I'm not taking any shots at him. An understated priority in the offseason for Chicago is getting Deng healthy and finding someone to spell him at SF for the regular season. He can't keep averaging 39 minutes a game in the regular season with all Thibs asks him to do.

Least Valuable Player: Evan Turner (Net -9). Not sure if Doug Collins lucked into this or not, but Evan Turner's point guard-ish game is the perfect compliment to Jrue Holiday's 2 guard-ish game. Probably shouldn't have taken 68 games to figure it out, but hey, better late than never.

Jerome James Award: Richard Hamilton / Carlos Boozer. It's not rocket science to heap blame on Boozer's shoe-polished head for the team's performance. But there's very little heading in Rip's direction. Look at their scoring numbers in the regular season and in the last 5 games of the series, post-Rose injury:

Richard Hamilton		FGA	FTA	Shots	PPS	PPG
Regular Season		11.1	1.3	12.4	0.94	11.6
Last 5 Games		12.6	3.2	15.8	0.75	11.8
Change		1.5	1.9	3.4	-0.19	0.2
Carlos Boozer		FGA	FTA	Shots	PPS	PPG
Regular Season		12.8	2.1	14.9	1.01	15.0
Last 5 Games		16.4	1.2	17.6	0.82	14.4
Change		3.6	-0.9	2.7	-0.19	-0.6

Both guys started scoring the ball at a much worse clip. Now, granted, Boozer has the bigger contract, but which one of these guys has more postseason experience? Hamilton. Which one has been to the NBA Finals twice, winning a title once? Hamilton. He's definitely not the guy he was 7 years ago, but Andre Miller isn't either, and he's finding a way to make an impact for the Nuggets. I think the whole series can be thrown out from a Bulls fan's perspective, except for one thing: Hamilton was brought in, in part, for the value he'd bring when the playoffs got tough. At least for these 5 games, that's not what he brought.